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Early Career Framework National Review

Apr 14, 2023

Early Career Framework National Review

The DfE has published (March 2023) a review of the first year of the Early Career Framework. This national survey covers 2021/22 academic year and the initial roll out of the programme to all schools in England.

It is an in-depth review and an important read for school leaders and induction tutors. Whilst the information is historic and not reflective of current experience now the programme is in its second year, it is important providers analyse the findings and benchmark their performance.

 

Generate Teaching Hub will – with our lead partner schools in Halton, Warrington and Wigan – be reviewing the findings against our own evaluations. We conducted a qualitative deep dive into the programme through our Independent Hub Assessor in the Summer term 2022. Our lead provider, Teach First, also provides anonymous satisfaction survey data from our teachers and mentors twice a year. From this we identified an improvement plan to our local programme and have been implementing that in this academic year.

Of interest to note are some of the headline findings and facts:

  • 27,000 Early Career Teachers were supported by 25,000 experienced mentors in 12,500 schools across England; through 145 delivery partners – like Generate Teaching Hub – working with just 6 national lead providers.
  • Workload is a factor for Mentors. Nearly 3 in every 10 mentors were also the induction tutor; the roles are supposed to go to two different teachers and only be fulfilled by one person in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Mentors are often also school leaders (7 in every 10), have a full teaching load (7 in 10) and nearly 1 in 5 also support a trainee teacher.
  • Early Career Teachers are usually young adults with three-quarters under 30 years of age; 8 in every 10 mentors are 30 years or older. The majority of both are full time employees, 95% of Early Career Teachers and 85% of mentors.
  • The ethnicity of mentors does not match Early Career Teachers, 90% and 86% respectively are White. Only 5.2% and 2.2% of mentors are Asian/Asian British or Black/Black British, whereas 7.3% and 3.4% of Early Career Teachers are.
  • The review found that mentoring is “highly valued” and “is seen as key to the success of the induction programme and is working well.” Pleasingly, 94% of Early Career Teachers rated their mentor relationship as good or very good, 98% of mentors rated their relationship with their Early Career Teacher as good or very good.

Our staff would welcome feedback from teachers and leaders on the Early Career Framework. We can also answer questions about its structure and local delivery. Please contact the team via hub@wpat.uk.

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